News:

The Book of the Diner is well worth preserving. I only wish it had reached a broader audience when it might have mattered more. That is a testament to the blindness of our culture. If there is a future to look back from, one difficult question historians will have to ask is how we let this happen, when so many saw it coming. This site has certainly aggregated enough information and critical thinking to prove that.[/b]

AuthorTopic: Someone You Love: Coming to a Gulag Near You (Read 4649 times)

April 02, 2012 "Truthdig" -- The security and surveillance state does not deal in nuance or ambiguity. Its millions of agents, intelligence gatherers, spies, clandestine operatives, analysts and armed paramilitary units live in a binary world of opposites, of good and evil, black and white, opponent and ally. There is nothing between. You are for us or against us. You are a patriot or an enemy of freedom. You either embrace the crusade to physically eradicate evildoers from the face of the Earth or you are an Islamic terrorist, a collaborator or an unwitting tool of terrorists. And now that we have created this monster it will be difficult, perhaps impossible, to free ourselves from it. Our 16 national intelligence agencies and army of private contractors feed on paranoia, rumor, rampant careerism, demonization of critical free speech and often invented narratives. They justify their existence, and their consuming of vast governmental resources, by turning even the banal and the mundane into a potential threat. And by the time they finish, the nation will be a gulag.

This is why the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which was contested by me and three other plaintiffs before Judge Katherine B. Forrest in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York on Thursday, is so dangerous. This act, signed into law by President Barack Obama last Dec. 31, puts into the hands of people with no discernible understanding of legitimate dissent the power to use the military to deny due process to all deemed to be terrorists, or terrorist sympathizers, and hold them indefinitely in military detention. The deliberate obtuseness of the NDAA’s language, which defines “covered persons” as those who “substantially supported” al-Qaida, the Taliban or “associated forces,” makes all Americans, in the eyes of our expanding homeland security apparatus, potential terrorists. It does not differentiate. And the testimony of my fellow plaintiffs, who understand that the NDAA is not about them but about us, repeatedly illustrated this.

No conspiracy theory about it. Hedges lays the case out clearly. NDAA and all the fearsome apparatus of the National Security State is in full ascendance, and the window for action is shrinking quickly. The alternative is internal exile, or, if one has sufficient means, emigration to El Cafayete with Doug Casey, or Cheelay.

The obvious question to ask in this situation is; how can you object to, oppose, defeat such an organization?

Within such a society any kind of attention brought to your personal actions, whether the actions are benign or otherwise, are used by the state to identify you and subsequently dispose of you. In such a state becoming visible, for any reason, amongst the droves of anonymous worker bees that perform the queen bee's assigned tasks thoughtlessly as robots, exposes you as a risk to TPTB because thinking for yourself instead of following orders unquestioningly is a threat to TPTB's dominance.

Although I don't fully follow my own unpopular advice which I have been giving since about 1999 when I first became substantially aware of how corrupt and destructive our society is, my answer is that you anonymously stop supporting the society with your labour and consumption. Don't even talk to your friends or family about what your intentions are but become independent and non-supportive of the society to the extent possible without raising any ripples identifying your non-conformity.

The surveillance state has the capability to identify even the tiniest ripples of non-conformity and identifying yourself to them for any reason makes it easy for their enforcement arm to round you up and dispose of you.

Remaining anonymous while objecting puts a much larger burden on the surveillance state. They need to place agents everywhere in order to find and dispose of you instead of you becoming visible to them for roundup by vibrating the threads of their spider webs placed wherever people congregate.

To be sure having no presence at all is a warning in itself to TPTB of your non-conformity. However, it still places the onus on them to find you rather than you identifying yourself to them with little effort on their part by objecting publicly.

Steps to take....

Reorganize your life so you need to work as little as possible within the economy, both above and underground. Ideally don't work at all. Everything you work at no matter how seemingly benign and/or insignificant benefits TPTB far more than it does you. Without workers their conspiracy will fall apart.

Become as self-sufficient outside the economy as possible. Anything you need to purchase or even barter for requires that you input your labour into the economy to achieve what you need. If you don't need anything from the economy you don't need to produce anything for the economy.

Where I have mostly fallen down in following my own advice is in becoming visible. The tactic described above will only work if enough individuals adopt it to disrupt the surveillance state's ability to conduct it's business. I have suggested this idea in public for a number of years with the hope that others will quietly adopt it once they are aware of it. I have been a thorn in the side of TPTB for most of my life and therefore have no anonymity left to protect.

My current intentionally created lifestyle demonstrates that even today, with virtually no resources, one can still check out and stop being a production center for the slave-masters.

For sure your life will never be the same once you take this step and could even mean your premature death but what is the alternative?

Our crop of slavers are currently ramping up their control from hiding behind the curtain and manipulating the situation unbeknownst to the general public, to overtly demanding compliance from the public out in the open because they think they now have enough control that no one can object effectively to their actions. History clearly demonstrates how despots act once they gain this amount of power. Massive genocide of those unwilling to be slaves and also those who are/become useless eaters is next on the agenda. http://www.historyplace.com/worldhistory/genocide/stalin.htm

Doing nothing to object doesn't guarantee your well being at this point or in the future. Which would you prefer for yourself and your loved ones? Change now which means taking more responsibility for your actions and taking some risk of failure or censure in order to object to the current transgressions effectively, but without glory, or doing nothing now and knowingly accepting the risk of being put through the current crop of despots' meat grinders without any option of resistance some time in the near future?

Walking the tightrope between trying to stay Invisible and at the same time try Warn as many as people as possible and help them develop personal strategies for survival under the Fascist State can very difficult. One thing we do have going for us currently is the fact that the number of websites disseminating this sort of information is increasing, which provides for some safety in numbers. You kind of disappear into the crowd of all the people who are exposing Goobermint and Illuminati machinations.

For right now, I think you only are in real danger if you do a couple of things. First one is gain a very large following. If you get a lot of people reading your website, you go "On Radar". Smaller websites tend to fly under the radar. The second one would be if you clearly advocate for violent insurrection or similar disruptive tactics, like the Anonymous Hacking of websites to reveal classified information, names and addresses of the Guilty and so forth. Which of course is why the Anonymous Hackers try to stay anonymous.

There is no doubt that now there are many more people who are aware of what is going on than just 4 years ago when I started surfing through collapse websites. Many more people understand how Da Fed works and the connections to the BIS than did back then. Many more people talk about going off grid and trying to develop an alternative survival paradigm.

If you can consciously and purposefully move off the Money economy, this is the best alternative. However, even if you can't do it consciously, many people are just forced off of it anyhow by the collapse of the Main Street economy. Whe a Critical Mass is achieved, then you get more major dislocation. We haven't really hit that period yet here in the FSofA, though it is coming down the pipe to be sure.

It will be much more dangerous and difficult to communicate over the Net in the future of course, many of the alternative websites and news sources will be shut down. However, the entire net might go down before that for many other reasons than just censorship. The time we have here to communicate information is overall probably pretty short because of all these reasons. While it exists, you have an obligation to warn as many people as you can, but you probably do not want to get TOO popular or successful with this. Then you go "On Radar", which might not be too good for your personal health.

Anonymity in numbers is a thing of the past regardless of how large the crowd is. Being a database developer for a number of years and writing binary search routines from scratch made me realize that finding/identifying a needle in a haystack, no matter how large, just takes milliseconds these days.

The ever growing list of needles is also painless to maintain. TPTB plan over decades and generations. Rest assured that what you have said in the past will come back to haunt you in the future. Remaining anonymous is only an option for those who have not yet popped up in their databases. If you think you haven't I suggest you consider very carefully how you proceed.

The hero myth that is so popular in our society is one of entrapment. 'Manning' up and standing up for what you believe in is only effective in a struggle between honorable opponents. TPTB are not honorable and identifying yourself to them gives them great advantage over you.

Yes the sweep to get rid of the noise has started with the squeakiest wheels first but it will continue at TPTB's convenience until the least of the "noise" is gone.

My attitude is not defeatist, I do think TPTB will fail but we will need to be very shrewd to counter the array of weapons they have lined up against us if we wish to help their defeat along. Confronting them forcefully gives them all the advantages. Even with all the power they have their thinking is still stuck in a rut. They assume the force they can muster will always assure compliance from those under them. Somehow we need to show them differently.

I am still of the opinion that the current financial destruction does not pose a threat to them in the least. The whole process was initiated by a very few at the top in order to make the majority more vulnerable to the next stage of their power grab.

Yes even major banks and corporate entities will fail but even that level is just expendable hired help to those behind this destruction. Money has been TPTB's main control mechanism for many generations but they realize it can only take them so far and have a plan that will supersede monetary control. We can only guess at what it might be. One thing we know for sure is that if the majority becomes outright slaves there is no need for money to pay for their labour.

What 'modern' methods could TPTB use to better control their stables of slaves?

In optimizing database searches seemingly irrelevant and unimportant information can greatly enhance the effectiveness of the indexes built to enable fast searches. The seemingly endless, considered by us harmless information, collected about us today serves a very real purpose and it isn't for our benefit.

With this level of detail, in milliseconds, they can reorder the database of say the whole population of the USA by items bought and find everyone who bought some innocent item which could be used for some nefarious purpose. They could then reorder the database by location and compare the list of item purchasers in a specific location through cell phone records identifying those in possession that do/don't reside in the area of interest that were present there on a specific date. The possible queries within these data sets are limitless.

Yes, you can have your Medicare, your Social Security, and your unemployment compensation, but you'll need to be chipped. All in the name of efficiency, of course. And you won't even need to carry a wallet. We'll just use scanners to debit your account, all accessible from the Verichip in your arm.

And should you cause us too much unpleasantness? We just turn off the chip. Good luck getting some your favorite GMO foods in a world with no money.

Turn, inevitably, to a life of crime? We activate the subroutine buried within the chip . . .

I'm aware of the bots out there that can sift information at light speed and the fact that every bit of what I write can and likely is being catalogued somewhere for a future GITMO Trial. You're not being Paranoid when they really ARE out to get you!

At the same time however, at the moment I don't think I'm sufficiently on the radar to be in more than the typical amount of danger. I was pretty paranoid crossing the border into Mexico, but in the end in 3 days crossing both directions and gettig my passport scanned, I got a perfunctory wave through every time. So as of yet, I haven't made the grade as a sufficiently dangerous Enemy of the State to even be briely detained at the border, much less get sent to GITMO for Waterboarding.

As for the future, I'll cross that bridge when I come to it. One thing is for sure, if they snd me off to the Gulag, I'll have plenty of good company. You'll be there also.

No, GITMO will be for the violent sorts. More likely you and fellow travellers will be interned at the FEMA camp in Wyoming, the one Dick Cheney had Halliburton build. I'm sure there will be crafts and ceramics there . . .

The obvious question to ask in this situation is; how can you object to, oppose, defeat such an organization?//Reorganize your life so you need to work as little as possible within the economy, both above and underground. Ideally don't work at all. Everything you work at no matter how seemingly benign and/or insignificant benefits TPTB far more than it does you. Without workers their conspiracy will fall apart.

Become as self-sufficient outside the economy as possible. Anything you need to purchase or even barter for requires that you input your labour into the economy to achieve what you need. If you don't need anything from the economy you don't need to produce anything for the economy.

Where I have mostly fallen down in following my own advice is in becoming visible. The tactic described above will only work if enough individuals adopt it to disrupt the surveillance state's ability to conduct it's business. I have suggested this idea in public for a number of years with the hope that others will quietly adopt it once they are aware of it. I have been a thorn in the side of TPTB for most of my life and therefore have no anonymity left to protect.

My current intentionally created lifestyle demonstrates that even today, with virtually no resources, one can still check out and stop being a production center for the slave-masters. //

Doing nothing to object doesn't guarantee your well being at this point or in the future. Which would you prefer for yourself and your loved ones? Change now which means taking more responsibility for your actions and taking some risk of failure or censure in order to object to the current transgressions effectively, but without glory, or doing nothing now and knowingly accepting the risk of being put through the current crop of despots' meat grinders without any option of resistance some time in the near future?

I found this post very thought provoking and wanted to mull it over a bit before writing anything in reply.

It does seem that the only thing we can do is withdraw our consent from the status quo. And that means withholding our labor, as you suggest. Doing that without bringing the Full Majesty of the State down on our heads is clearly another matter, as you illustrate clearly. Guess it's not 1848 anymore.

You shed new and unpleasant light on how data miners can find anomalies. I can only share with RE the (reasonable) hope that we are all pretty small beer, in the scheme of things.

What you have written reminds me of Dmitry Orlov: “Much of the transformation is psychological and involves letting go of many notions that we have been conditioned to accept unquestioningly. In order to adapt, you will need plenty of free time. Granting yourself this time requires a leap of faith: you have to assume the future has already arrived.” Also: “Beyond the matter of personal safety, you will need to understand who has what you need and how to get it from them.”

Most of us are like fish trying to describe the shape of the fishbowl, so dependent are we on the paradigms with which we have grown up and participated in this economy. And then I look at someone like you, who has lived outside the paradigm for years, and successfully so . . . although as you wrote in the MIA thread, having such a varied skill set puts you in high demand, which is in itself a mixed blessing. All in all though, I would rather live in a community of likeminded people and be valued and thus busy than the alternative.

We are deeply challenged to understand what it would mean to live without an economy, when cash is virtually useless and most people won't be getting any income anyway because they'll be out of a job. RE echoes Orlov when he says that when faced with a collapsing economy, one should stop thinking of wealth in terms of money. Physical resources and assets, relationships and connections will be worth more than cash.

In working with local homeless I have often observed a resilience from street living that those of us more comfortably positioned wholly lack. It seems clear to me that those who operate on the margins and who possess a variety of "do it yourself" skills will do better, when the end comes, than those whose incomes and lifestyles have accustomed us to petroleum fueled comparative luxury.

When TSHTF, if your only skills are arbitrage or insurance sales, you will end your short life pushing a wheelbarrow through the mud in a FEMA re-education camp.

This is becoming an issue for me. I am fearful that all this communal discussion of the collapse prospect is going to end up being a fatal error.

It is clear the American Empire is entering the final phase and pivoting towards Theocratic Totalitarianism. I have a lot of marks against me, including spending significant time abroad and making no secret of my contempt for the dominant culture. God forbid someone ever went through the books I've checked out from the Chicago Public Library in the last 18 months. It would read like a laundry list for the disaffected intellectual...

Either way, the prospect of ending up interned or worse is something I never thought I'd face in my life; living in fear over what you say and write. This is not a democracy anymore, that is for sure.

This is becoming an issue for me. I am fearful that all this communal discussion of the collapse prospect is going to end up being a fatal error.

You are right. If it's any consolation it's already too late to do anything about it. We've all been flagged already so have nothing more to lose. Judging by history the culling will be brutal and even the slightest hint any time in the past of thinking for yourself will likely doom you to oblivion not a work camp. The 700+ Work camps that already exist such as the Fema camp in Wyoming Surly mentioned, will be reserved for the willing slaves. Those like us will likely see one of 400m rounds of ammunition that DHS just ordered and a trip to one of the millions of coffins Fema already has in storage.

This situation actually has some +'s. Once you accept this inevitability it becomes obvious that continuing to slave away to fit into the system is a waste of time and effort. Although striking out on your own is frightening to consider it gives you the opportunity now to live life the way you believe it should be lived. Unless you are so brainwashed that the only things you desire are those TPTB dangle on a stick in front of our faces, it is still possible today to live a worthwhile and enjoyable lifestyle. We possibly have years before the net is totally closed and anything could happen before then. Is it not better going to your grave doing what you love instead of going to your grave caught in the grind of compliance to TPTB?

I do not see my current life as a step down from what I had, I see it as a step up and am enjoying every moment of it.

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Surly1... You shed new and unpleasant light on how data miners can find anomalies. I can only share with RE the (reasonable) hope that we are all pretty small beer, in the scheme of things.

TPTB don't see in shades of grey. It's B&W with them. You are either for or against them. Even the slightest hint of reluctance will earn you the same fate as the worst offenders. At best being a little fish will only earn you a little more time.

We have nothing left to lose, our former way of life is already dead.

If by some miracle TPTB are thwarted in their intent, whether by nature, or by enough people checking out of the system, or by any other means, you will not lose anything by checking out of the system now and deciding for yourself how you desire to live. You will just have a head start on most everyone else. Your example might even motivate some to do the same.

I'm going to talk about the Jack of all Trades thing in the next post here but need to get on with something else first.

I've had the same worries from time to time, but let's put this in perspective.

First of all there are 330 million Americans in this country. The Feds / Military have to prioritize their threats. Remember, these agencies have limited man-power and get their budgets filled through borrowed government debt. Do you think anyone is going to be paying much in the way of taxes if the SHTF? Do you think the government is going to waste resources on angry bloggers who have stocked up on MREs and silver?

Who's more dangerous? One hundred thousand or so survival-wannabes who have never even been camping or the heavily armed gangs with drug money and weapons flowing over the border? What about the rural militias that are actively looking to overthrow the local mayor? What about the lone crazies like T. McVeigh looking for WMD materials? Not to mention any 'real' terrorists out there.

There are probably MILLIONS of angry folks out there right now but a very small percentage of them actually pose any serious risk. I doubt any of us here represent such a risk because like Peter said, people who don't want to be noticed don't go posting things at the Doomstead Diner!

I've had the same worries from time to time, but let's put this in perspective.

First of all there are 330 million Americans in this country. The Feds / Military have to prioritize their threats. Remember, these agencies have limited man-power and get their budgets filled through borrowed government debt. Do you think anyone is going to be paying much in the way of taxes if the SHTF? Do you think the government is going to waste resources on angry bloggers who have stocked up on MREs and silver?

The "Threats" that our leaders and 'their' military are feeding us through their MSM are virtually all straw men created by them simply to justify to us their citizens, including we bloggers, their [our leaders] clamping down on our civil liberties and making those of us that suit them into outright slaves and disposing of the rest. WE have always been their real target.

The cost involved becomes immaterial once martial law/dictatorship is declared. All it will take to get the labour they need is the threat of a bullet through the head of us or our loved ones.

The atrocities our soldiers have been trained/allowed to commit in the multitude of current wars and military actions have served well to desensitize them to bloody butchery. My guess is that the job has been done thoroughly enough to have many of them turn on citizens of their own country if it is demanded of them. Threats to the troups of "Kill your neighbors or it's a bullet through the head for you", is a viable option for a dictatorship. If nothing else their allowed rampages through other countries have made enough bitter enemies elsewhere to build an army of foreigners to come deal with us just as brutally. TPTB control the armies in all the countries and it is a simple matter for them of moving them around to deal with foreigners.

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Who's more dangerous? One hundred thousand or so survival-wannabes who have never even been camping or the heavily armed gangs with drug money and weapons flowing over the border? What about the rural militias that are actively looking to overthrow the local mayor? What about the lone crazies like T. McVeigh looking for WMD materials? Not to mention any 'real' terrorists out there.

The drug gangs belong to TPTB and are no threat to them. All the militias exposed so far have been goaded on, infiltrated or created by TPTB stooges for political purposes. Yes they will be high on their list to debilitate to ineffectiveness but they have more than enough resources to do so. All the local police forces are rapidly being federalized or made beholden to the feds through funding so they will be on board. If you spend any time at all looking at information available surrounding T. McVeigh it becomes blatantly obvious he was just another government stooge that served TPTB's purposes.

TPTB now need to cull their herd of workers and also get rid of all that are capable of causing them trouble. That is mostly people just like us that are dissatisfied with simply following orders without thought.

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There are probably MILLIONS of angry folks out there right now but a very small percentage of them actually pose any serious risk. I doubt any of us here represent such a risk because like Peter said, people who don't want to be noticed don't go posting things at the Doomstead Diner!

Jb

It's not simply a matter of dealing with angry folks that are a risk to TPTB. TPTB needed a very large workforce to create the heavy industries that got technology to where it is today which is now far more efficient and less labour intensive. In a democracy you can't simply kill off the now surplus workforce, you need to feed them and care for them. That is a massive and expensive [in resources] task.

Once you have created a dictatorship you don't need to worry about such niceties. You can just kill off as many as suits your purposes. There are plenty of examples of this in history, even in recent history. One Canadian example virtually no one has heard of occurred when the Trans Canadian Railroad was completed around 1885. There was a massive work force of Chinese people that were central to building the railroad which became surplus once it was finished. They didn't make much more than slave wages and most couldn't afford to return to the East. TPTB didn't want to keep maintaining them here so they walked 100's of them into quarries where they had been making ballast rock and dynamited them in to kill them off.

When the job is over it doesn't matter what you are. To the boss you are simply surplus that needs to be gotten rid of as cheaply as possible. Just abandoning you to your fate has the potential of a resistance building so the logical thing to do if you have no conscience is to kill off the potential threats.

This is becoming an issue for me. I am fearful that all this communal discussion of the collapse prospect is going to end up being a fatal error.

You are right. If it's any consolation it's already too late to do anything about it. We've all been flagged already so have nothing more to lose. Judging by history the culling will be brutal and even the slightest hint any time in the past of thinking for yourself will likely doom you to oblivion not a work camp. The 700+ Work camps that already exist such as the Fema camp in Wyoming Surly mentioned, will be reserved for the willing slaves. Those like us will likely see one of 400m rounds of ammunition that DHS just ordered and a trip to one of the millions of coffins Fema already has in storage.

Well first of all, you do have to get somewhat comfortable with the fact that the Grim Reaper comes-a-calling for all of us sooner or later. Its a tad bit easier for older folks to do this than younger ones of course.

What are your Options here? Just completely STFU and stop posting on the Internet because you are concerned that someday TPTB will use this as an excuse to put a Bullet through your Brain? Did Galileo STFU when the Inquisition told him to STFU? IMHO, if you cannot even SPEAK the Truth, life isn't worth living anyhow. I'm not going to STFU until the day the Black Vans and Ford LTDs show up in front of the Cabin.

With that in mind, hopefully I'll see it coming and won't get completely blind sided on it. They won't take me alive! I'll take myself out, and hopefully take a few of the Gestapo with me when I go. I know I am gonna die here one way or the other, hell I'll probably go from a massive coronary here in the near enough future anyhow. I have 3 main goals with whatever remains of my life. One is to inform as many people as I possibly can as to what I see as the TRUTH here. Second is to help teach as many kids as I can skills they will need to survive in the future. Finally, 3rd is just to avoid getting my Ticket to the Great Beyond in a FEMA Concentration Camp. I want to go out as a Free Man, best I can. If anyone is going to put a Bullet through my Brain, it will be me. If it was good enough for Hunter, its good enough for me.

Not quite there yet though. If I am on the List, its not yet apparent in my life so I will just Keep on Trucking here until I can't anymore. Then try not to get Blind Sided before I can write my own ticket to the Great Beyond.